Over five billion wireless connectivity chips will ship in 2013, according to ABI Research, as our appetite for everything mobile continues to grow. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are both growing, of course, but so are lesser-known specs such as Zigbee, UWB, and, yes, even NFC. (...)

I talked to Peter Cooney, a wireless analyst with ABI, just before the the research company’s London offices closed for the Christmas long weekend.

“NFC has gone from two million devices in 2010 to 100 million in 2012,” he said. “Android is really driving that growth, but NFC is coming of age … and integration into smartphones is driving growth in other areas.”

That’s something we’ve seen a lot of this year: sensors and connected switches for windows and doors, lights, heating, and more. SmartThings wants to help youcontrol the real world, as does ReelyActive. And while NFC has been the next great thing for some time, we’re seeing a ton of innovation in the home automation space using multiple wireless protocols.

Zaragoza, Spain-based Libelium has launched a new RFID/NFC module for its Waspmote sensor platform. The new radio module extends Waspmote features allowing the sensor data to be used in Location Based Services (LBS), such as asset tracking, supply chain monitoring, intelligent shopping or access management.

By using RFID/NFC (passive sensors) along with ZigBee (active sensors), Libelium says asset tracking can be more accurate than ever along the whole supply chain process. Product management software such as ERPs will have access in real time to information related to remaining stock, storage and transportation conditions (temperature and humidity levels, vibrations, light exposure, etc), expiration dates and even consumer profiles, knowing time spent in front of a shelf or products picked up and not bought.

"Together, three trends lead to an Internet of Things, where smart phones use NFC to make statements about the physical world. For example, there has already been an art exhibition that lets visitors vote for their favorite display by tapping with their smartphone. But more importantly, there’s an Internet of Secure Things coming. You will be able to use your smartphone to badge in to work, unlock your PC, start your car or motorcycle (the prototype of that is already working), as well as merely pay for things.

It isn’t going to all happen in 2012, but we are likely to look back at 2012 as the year when it took off."

By Jon Callas, CTO, Entrust One - on the confluence of few major trends.

"As NFC devices become more common, Google will use them to construct a richly-detailed virtual universe, the first steps towards the fabled 'Internet of things' -- whereby all manner of devices will be able to talk to each other as part of a vast network of technologies and services, beyond the scale of the current internet."

Speaking at a seminar held by European Communucations, titled "Beyond Connectivity", Schlautmann said that the Fleet and Freight Management and Security and Surveillance sectors are the only two sectors achieving market "breakthrough". (...)

Schlautmann added that he "can't see" payments, vending and NFC becoming "mass market" in Europe, and added that metering and monitoring, often touted as a key vertical, offers little beyond basic connectivity revenues. Schlautmann also pointed out that "no other market" is so dependent on regulatory and legislative drivers - referencing eCall and smart metering as example. "If smart metering was not regulated then there would be no market at all," he said.

But it was for the e- and m-health market that he expressed his strongest reservations.(...)

"It's not about the number of devices." he said, "it's about revenue." To build revenues, telcos will need to develop ecosystems that let them orchestrate and develop services, so that they can benefit from the created value. At the moment, most markets exhibit far too many players, operating in too small spheres of influence. Telcos, by partnering, co-operating and forming alliances with partners throught the value chaing, could drive the sort of ecosystem consolidation that is required, he said, to drive "breakthrough" revenues.

These two industries are advanced because it makes sense, driving efficiency and squeezing the already ruthlessly tight margins in global transportation and with Security it is a governed requirement this is naturally the way to improve security, the infrastructure and imbedded capability to are already advanced enough to adopt M2M..

Needless to say the quicker any given industry and specific organisation adopts a Machine to machine strategy and roadmap the better!

Although touchatag tags are NFC compliant, they cannot be overwritten. Much of the tag's internal memory is used for communication with the touchatag service. There is about 4 bytes of free space on a touchatag tag.

"Internet of Things: Yes, this has been optimistically discussed (and demonstrated) for some time. But in 2012 and beyond, it’s expected to approach a more scalable tipping point. Some of the key technologies that will fuel the growth of connected objects include a) sensors embedded in devices, places and objects to detect and communicate changes in various conditions b) image recognition to identify objects, people, buildings, places logos, and anything with meaning c) Near Field Communication (NFC) payment facilitated between phone and reader to improve speed of service, and understanding of customer’s preferences and behavior.

"Thinfilm, a Norwegian developer of printable memory, has co-announced with California's Xerox PARC a development that takes a big step towards the day when every manufactured object will report in to the internet.

Yes, the "internet of things" – the buzzword of the decade.

Thinfilm and PARC's breakthrough is a technology that can print not only memory onto, well, thin films, but can now also print transistors to address and manage that memory."

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